Saturday, March 21, 2015

Rauner vs. Madigan, Lisa that is

It’s
starting to feel like the dominant trend in Illinois state government in coming
years is going to be brawls of Rauner vs. Madigan, as in the daughter of the
Illinois House speaker who is state attorney general in her own right.

Yes,
it could be that the biggest obstacle Gov. Bruce Rauner has to overcome to
impose his ideological agenda is that of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan
– who on Friday took a serious dump all over the fantasies the new governor has
about bringing ‘right to work’ concepts to Illinois.

THOSE
TYPES OF laws enacted in several conservative-leaning states are meant to
undermine organized labor in ways that discourage workers from wanting to join
unions. Usually by permitting companies to be able to engage in actions that
are hostile to labor interests.

Rauner
tries to claim that it somehow forces people who don’t want to join a union to
do so if they want to work in certain types of jobs. In reality, it makes it
easier for companies to single out for abuse those people who would want to
have a labor union help represent their interests on the job.

Right
to work is a concept that is big in Southern states, and has spread to certain
other parts of the country – including our neighbor states of Indiana and
Wisconsin.

In
the latter, Gov. Scott Walker wants to think his hostility to organized labor
interests will carry him to the White House as a successor to Barack Obama come
the 2016 election cycle.

ILLINOIS
IS DIFFERENT politically and the Democratic Party interests that control the
General Assembly are highly unlikely to ever take full-fledged ‘right to work’
seriously. Which is why Rauner was talking about creation of ‘right to work
zones.’

As
in certain communities might be able to designate themselves as places where
labor unions would have such restrictions that they would be unable to function
within those boundaries.

I
suspect that Rauner thinks if he could bring the ‘right to work’ concept to
parts of Illinois, the rest of the state would soon be clamoring for the same
thing.

But
on Friday, Madigan (the attorney general, not “Mr. Speaker”) issued a legal
opinion saying that Rauner’s idea is not legal. It wouldn’t work. He can’t go
about trying to impose ‘right to work’ laws piecemeal by slipping them under
the door crack.

IT
WOULD BE a violation of the National Labor Relations Act, Madigan wrote, and
that it would take the actual General Assembly in full to approve changes in
state law to bring ‘right to work’ anywhere in Illinois.

Which
is a big ‘fat chance’ in Illinois. There might be some local officials in
isolated pockets of the Land of Lincoln (mostly the kind of people who wish they
could be called Hoosiers) who would be willing to offer up their communities
for an experiment.

But
full-state passage isn’t likely. Perhaps too much of Illinois is urban? Or maybe it's just that Illinois people, urban or rural, are too smart to put up with such nonsense.

Rauner
could still try to file some sort of lawsuit and convince a judge he’s right.
But he’d have Lisa Madigan and all of the attorneys who work for state
government in opposition.

IT
WOULD EXPOSE his desires as the politically partisan power grab that it truly
is.

It
wouldn’t be the first time this governor and the current attorney general
disagreed on an issue. Let’s remember that when the death of Illinois
comptroller Judy Baar Topinka created a vacancy, Rauner’s preference was to
appoint a replacement for the full four-year term.

While
Madigan ultimately said a special election must be held at some point, rather
than let Rauner appointee Leslie Munger have a full four-year term.

Is
this going to be the trend; those people with more progressive political
leanings viewing Lisa Madigan as their savior to protect the masses of Illinois
from being tormented by the governor who (let’s be honest) didn’t win election
as much as his opponent in last year’s election cycle lost it.

IF
SO, THEN perhaps we ought to view the happenings of Jan. 11 (the day before
Inauguration Day) in a new light; when Madigan and Rauner were both at the
Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum and the Chicago Sun-Times got a
picture of the two embracing.

Perhaps
now in retrospect, the two wish they had wrapped their fingers around each
others’ necks!

I am a Chicago-area freelance writer who has reported on various political and legal beats. I wrote "Hispanic" issues columns for United Press International, observed up close the Statehouse Scene in Springfield, Ill., the Cook County Board in Chicago and municipal government in places like Calumet City, Ill., and Gary, Ind. For a time, I also wrote about agriculture. Trust me when I say the symbolic stench of partisan politics (particularly when directed against people due to their ethnicity) is far nastier than any odor that could come from a farm animal.